fRED
by constellation way
Summary: he's never had anything like a younger sister before. she's never had an older brother.
1. first meetings

**Here is the story that nobody asked for OMG I am so useless HAHAHA I know I know I should really be updating my other stories but no inspiration (esp for my Dani-in-BH6-verse series. help!) and this idea came into my head and I thought it'd be really cute! I mean, can you imagine Fred trying to be a big brother?**

 **of course, i was trying to work on a Lilo &Stitch oneshot, but it wasn't really working out very well, so... **

**(seriously I PROMISE I will update my other stories, but if you guys have any ideas/comments/suggestions for my other stories, I'd be glad to hear them haha really stuck on them)**

 **hope you enjoy, it'd be _great_ if you could read and review hahaha **

* * *

They meet when she's just five, and he's a whole four years older, tall and scary and intimidating at all of nine years old. She's worried, almost afraid, because she doesn't get out much, not really, her daddy doesn't like her too, and her mother doesn't care that much. But she's here, she has to be here today, because of some business deal that Father is trying to make and she's been invited too.

"On your best behaviour, Rachel," Mother says, and she nods and has to resist the urge to pull at her hair. Daddy's promised that he'll buy her that really big, nice new set of crayons and oil pastels if she is especially good today, and she really, really wants them, so she promises to be on her best behaviour, ever.

Then she is left alone with this boy, who is tall and lanky and kind of lazy-looking, scruffy-looking, and she doesn't know what to do, not really.

"Hey," he says, as if noticing just how worried she is. "You don't have to look so scared, I'm not gonna do anything to you! What's your name?"

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare," she finds herself saying, a little quietly.

He stares at her, and then he laughs. "That's a really long name," he says. "What about I call you Red? You know, like R-E-D. For your initials! Cool, huh? And it's your hair colour too, it's like a fire-engine kind of colour, you know, that's even better!"

She can't help it, she finds herself smiling, wider, more brightly, at this funny, tall, scruffy boy who doesn't seem quite so intimidating now. "Okay," she agrees, and then she remembers her manners, and she says, "What about you? What's your name?"

He grins at her, a kind of lazy grin, and he tells her, "I'm Fred."

* * *

She points out, as he brings her on a mini-tour of the mansion he and his family stay in, that _Fred_ is really just the word _red_ with the letter 'F' in front of it. He blinks, once, twice, and then he is laughing again, grinning.

"You're totally right, kid, it is!" he says. "Hey, that's so cool!"

He brings her around to see the cool sculptures and statues and paintings, even though he's not really interested in them and he isn't sure about them, not really, but he sees her face light up at the paintings, sees her eyes widen over the sculptures, tells him about how her parents have told her they'll buy a really nice expensive set of oil pastels, though she doesn't say it's only if she's on her best behaviour.

His brows furrow at that. "You like art?"

She nods, eagerly. "I like to draw!"

"I dunno, Red, I always liked superheroes and comics better," he says. "C'mon, they're really cool! You know, I thought it would be really cool if I could transform into a fire-breathing lizard – "

He leads her down corridor after corridor, until they reach a pair of double doors, and he tells her that there's really cool stuff inside. She figures it's superhero and comic-book stuff, and when the doors open, she's right. There are loads and loads of comics, and lots of action figures, and a huge screen with monster movies piled around it, and an area he's roped off where, he says, he's going to convince his parents to let him buy a huge monster figure. Or something. She's getting kind of lost with all the comic-book names.

But that's not why he's brought her here, he says. Instead, he brings her over to a table, digs around in the drawers, comes up with a bunch of oil pastels and colour pencils and massive sheets of paper.

"My parents were trying to get me interested in art a while ago, they bought all this artsy stuff from one of the major shops," Fred is telling her, as he spreads the stuff on the table. "I never really used them, but do you want to?"

It's like she's glowing, beaming, the way she smiles at him.

* * *

She draws him a picture, of him as a superhero, and though the proportion's a little off, it's streets ahead of anything he could ever do, and he tells her it's amazing and he immediately puts it up on the wall.

No one's ever done anything like that for him before, not ever. It gets kind of lonely in this house, sometimes, and usually all the kids who've been made to come here are pretty stuck up, or snobby, or can't appreciate his sense of humour or his comic books. Red's only really a kid, but she's a pretty fun one at that, and she's drawn him as a superhero. He's actually kind of touched.

"You really like it?" she says, almost shyly. She's a little out of her depth here, she's never had any real friends, not proper friends; usually all the people she meet are the daughters of her father's friends, prim, proper, laughing at her for wanting to draw and to paint, only interested in princesses and fairy tales and dresses and crowns.

(Not that she doesn't like princesses. She does. She just think art's cooler.)

"Are you kidding, Red? It's awesome! I love it! Totally cool!"

* * *

Daddy says that his business associates were very impressed with her behaviour during dinner, and she made a very good impression on their son Fred, so they let her buy whatever she wants from the really expensive art store not far from where they live, not just the oil pastels and crayons. And she does, buying paints, brushes, glitter, anything and everything that she thinks she might possibly use.

The next time round, it's not for some fancy dinner or anything, it's just another business visit, but Father says that Fred had asked if she was coming when his parents told him that Mr Dare was coming, so he's bringing her along, but he tells her not to make a nuisance of herself and that she still has to be on her best behaviour.

This time, Fred teaches her how to play video games. She's not very good at it, but he's patient, laughing and messing up her hair and telling her the best way to have fun while she's playing. She's not that into video games, it's true, and especially less after the two hours of playing it, but she guesses it's not so bad, at least not with Fred.

He tells her about cool stuff from his comic books, and she draws them out for him. She tells him about how her parents let her buy whatever she wanted from the art store, and he tells her stupid stories and makes her laugh, and he tells her that her hair is fire-engine red and she tells him that his hair looks like a mop. She's just five years old, and she's four years younger than him, but she tries to teach him how to draw properly, as they spread out paper and pencils all over the table.

It doesn't work out very well, of course.

"How'd you learn how to draw like this?" Fred wants to know.

She shrugs: "I don't know. I just always liked art. And I could do it. And I practised."

Fred thinks it's too soon when Heathcliff tells them that she has to go.

* * *

It becomes a routine. Whenever Mr Dare goes over to San Fransokyo, Rachel always follows, and she always spends the entire time with Fred. She tells him it's not healthy to sit inside all the time, and they wander around the grounds, and they play catch, and hide and seek, and anything else they can think of.

It gets so that Rachel tells him, about her nightmares, about monsters reaching up to her in the dark, about lightning and buildings toppling over and the world falling apart and it's all her fault. She tells him about the monsters that she sees on the streets, the ones that to everyone else look human, but she sees one-eyed creatures, ogres with yellowing teeth, female things with cruel fangs and mismatched legs, horrible, horrible monsters, and she tells him sometimes she thinks she's going crazy.

He tells her not to think that, he tells her she's perfectly fine. He tells her it's probably her imagination going into overdrive because she has too much of it, and she's not very convinced, and he tells her that he'd never let the monsters get to her anyway because he'll always be around to protect her.

"But I live in New York," she says.

"Doesn't matter," Fred tells her. "I'll fly over there and I'll take care of those monsters for you. 'Course, I'd be much faster if I could fly on my own, but I'll figure that out, you know?"

She smiles so brightly at him, he can't help but smile back.

He tells her, sometimes, that he likes to try and save money and use it to buy his own things. He tells her that he doesn't really like being all dressed up and fancy, and he likes being himself, walking around in scruffy clothes and big shirts and doing whatever he wants to do. Being rich is okay, he tells her, but it's much cooler to do what you want, to be who you want to be, right? It's not like his money makes him who he is, he says. If he doesn't want to be all prim and proper and all that stuff, it's cool, it's his life. He can choose not to wash his underwear for a week, if he wants to.

She tells him that's gross, but she has a look that's way too thoughtful for a five-year-old on her face after that.

* * *

Sometimes they walk around San Fransokyo, and sometimes Fred piggybacks her as they make their way along the streets, when she gets too tired, or when he just feels like carrying her. He races around, whooping wildly, and they stop to eat good food and ice cream and chips, and they stop at his favourite comic-book stores, and he follows her into art shops.

Once, he's carrying her as they go by a playground, and he asks her if she wants to play, but she tells him she's really tired, and can they go get ice cream instead? And he thinks longingly of the comic books he's been saving up to buy, but he says sure, no problem, ice cream sounds great.

"Aw," says a lady, standing with a bunch of other women, watching their kids in the sandpit. "Is this your sister? You're such a sweet brother! How cute!"

"Oh, yeah," says Fred, before Rachel can say anything. "Yeah, she is. Thanks, cool lady." And he doesn't really know how to respond to the 'sweet' or the 'cute' part, so he smiles a little awkwardly and carries Red over to their favourite ice-cream place.

"Why'd you tell her I'm your sister?" Red wants to know, as they're eating ice cream, and she is frowning, just a little.

Fred shrugs, "I dunno, I guess I kind of think of you as a sister," he says. "I dunno, I've never had a sister." I've never really had friends, he thinks, but he decides not to mention that part. He's got _acquaintances_ , for sure, but he's got very few people he'd really classify under 'friends'. "But I guess you're not so bad, Red."

He grins at her, ruffles her hair.

She sticks out her tongue at him, swallows more ice cream.

"I've never had a brother, either," she says.

* * *

Of course, it's too good to last.

The deal falls through, disagreements come up, Mr Dare swears that he's never working with Mr Lee ever again, tells Rachel she's never going back to San Fransokyo because he's never going back there, not ever. He hauls her out of the mansion, and she only has time to say goodbye and fling her arms around Fred just once before Mr Dare drags her away, tells her they're never going back, and Rachel can see the anger in his eyes and doesn't dare to say a thing, and she can only look back at where Fred's run out onto the road, watching them drive away.

Mr Lee doesn't say much to his son. Just tells him that the deal didn't work out, they had far too many conflicts, and he's sorry that he and Rachel didn't get a proper goodbye. He tells him that besides, he should make friends his age, anyway, that Rachel's only five (he ignores Fred's comment that "Red's turning six next month"), and that it's all for the best. The Dares are not the best people to work with, not the best people to know.

He didn't even get to say goodbye.

He leaves the superhero drawing on the wall.

* * *

 **i don't know. i thought it'd be cute. yes? no? thinking they'll probably meet again sometime in the future, i dunno. but yea please do leave comments if you have any heh thank youu hope you enjoyed it!**


	2. deja vu

**hey there! yes, here's the continuation of fRED haha - i just couldn't _not_ continue it! **

**thank you for all the favs, follows and reviews! they all mean a lot to me (: reviews give the motivation to keep writing yes!**

 **also, would really like your opinion on Rachel's relationship with Fred - i'm always a sucker for childhood romances, but i really do like the idea of sibling love as well. please do let me know what you think!**

 **also, some things to note! this isn't a companionfic to healing. the BH6 members are _not_ demigods. i am a sucker for stories whereby Tadashi is still alive, so, well, i'll try to keep him being alive as much as possible. i'm also not very sure where i'd like this story to go (though i can assure you, for a fact, that it won't go into _that_ much detail as what happens in the movie, because where's the fun in just transcribing scenes and throwing in a random character?), so if you have any ideas or opinions or whatever, i'd love to hear them!**

 **anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter! not fantastic, i'd say, but, well, i suppose it's decent haha. so yeah, hope you enjoy this!**

* * *

ELEVEN YEARS LATER

"So," Tadashi says, "what's with that little stick figure girl you're always drawing nowadays?"

Fred looks up, confused: "What stick figure girl?"

Tadashi leans across the table, taps at the bottom of GoGo's physics notes which Fred's been doodling on absentmindedly. "That stick figure girl."

Fred blinks, stares down at the bottom of the paper, where there's a scribble of a stick figure girl with wild hair and a smile a mile wide grinning up at him, and he drops the pencil abruptly.

"Damn," he says. "That's GoGo's notes, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Tadashi passes him an eraser, which Fred grabs and uses to swipe off the tiny stick figure girl gratefully, before GoGo can get back from her classes and slaughter him. Not a good idea. _Really_ not a good idea.

"So, what's with the girl?" Tadashi wants to know. "You kept drawing her everywhere this time last year, too. Wasabi nearly had a panic attack."

Fred just shrugs, uncomfortably.

Red's not someone he's ever talked about to his friends. Not to anyone, really. It's been more than ten years, but he really misses that kid. It's funny, how someone can stay in your head, in your heart, for so many years. She was only a five-year-old kid, he thinks, just another one of his parents' business associates' kids, but he's always remembered her as the little girl with the fire engine hair and who loved to draw and who was really his first ever friend.

His sister, if you will.

Sometimes he stops by that old playground, sometimes he stops by the old ice cream parlour she used to love. It's stupid, ridiculous, he knows. She's a part of his past that's long gone – he's never even been able to find her on social media – but it's hard to let her go, to forget her. He's still got that superhero sketch up on that wall, along with a couple more, and he's still got a couple of old photographs that Heathcliff took, because of course their parents never had the time to play with them or entertain them.

"Fred?" Tadashi asks, almost gently. He's leaning against one of the tables in the nerd lab, watching Fred on his sofa, the mascot suit lying discarded next to him. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. It's just that – we've all noticed something's off. Even GoGo's worried. You must've noticed she's punching you a lot more than she usually does."

Fred cracks a smile at that. Yeah, he's noticed. Trust that to be GoGo's way of showing affection.

He makes a decision.

He fishes his wallet out from his pockets, takes out an old photo, hands it over to Tadashi.

"That's Red," says Fred. "Rachel, actually, but I called her Red. We used to be childhood friends. Best friends for a year. Then our parents had a falling out and I never saw her again." He manages another smile. "This time of year – " He waves a hand " – it's around the time her dad hauled her out of my house. A month before her birthday. Get kinda mopey around this time of year."

Tadashi's looking at the photo curiously. "She looks really young."

"Yeah." Fred's not sure why, but he elects not to tell Tadashi that the kid's four years younger than them. He shrugs as he gets the photo back from Tadashi: "She was, uh, my first real friend. Not really easy to forget her."

"She doesn't look like an easy person to forget," says Tadashi.

Fred thinks of sunny days and piggyback rides and running around the mansion and exploring San Fransokyo's comic book and art stores and drawings and video game battles.

"Yeah," he says. "She isn't."

* * *

This is her escape.

She's grateful she signed up for that teenage artists' exhibition thing at Clarion Academy, because, despite her dislike for the school, the art program's not so bad. Anyway, she's signed up, submitted her work, and she's been asked to put up an exhibition, along with three other art students from prestigious schools, in some place called San Fransokyo.

"San Fransokyo?" her father splutters, when he hears the name, and his face very nearly turns purple, in a rare fit of frustration and anger.

"Yes," says Rachel. "And there's no way I'm not going ahead with this. It's part of my education at Clarion Academy, you can't complain. And we looked up San Fransokyo, it's all high-class and high-tech and all that, not some kind of dingy city in the middle of nowhere. What's wrong with it?"

Her father doesn't say much more, only purses his lips tightly together and nods jerkily.

So off she goes, to spend a couple of weeks at San Fransokyo.

They are put up in some kind of apartment, she and this other girl called Sophie and two boys, who are called Aster and Jack-Jack, with some pair of French siblings who look after them and own the place and who insist that they be called Marie and Toulouse and who are in charge of the exhibition. Marie is rather prim and proper and ladylike, but she proves to be great fun, and she doesn't mind Rachel appearing in her paint-splatted jeans and oversized shirts. Toulouse, on the other hand, is an artist himself, and he spends hours into the night talking to them about their artwork. They have a brother called Berlioz, who drops by most evenings and plays the piano for them and makes them all laugh. The three siblings talk easily, laugh easily, understand and read each other so easily, and Rachel feels a familiar ache in her heart.

She wonders why it feels so much stronger here in San Fransokyo, this lonely ache.

Slowly, piece by piece, their exhibition at the San Fransokyo Art Museum goes up, until its opening a week after their arrival.

After this, Rachel's free to explore the city on her own. Mostly.

Of course, Sophie offers to go with her, but Rachel delicately pushes her towards Aster instead so the Australian boy can go around with the blond girl. Rachel's not blind, after all. The poor boy's got it bad for Sophie Bennett with her bright green eyes and her long blond hair and her happy laugh and her wide, wide smile.

Jack-Jack, on the other hand, is content to wander around the city on his own as well. They end up meeting up a few times in front of some famous place or another, and they end up walking around together some days. It's not so bad, Rachel thinks. Jack-Jack's pretty good company, and he tells her about his older brother Dash who's dating some _really_ cool girl called Dani and his oldest sister Violet who is getting married to her childhood sweetheart's brother, of all things, and Rachel tells him about Percy and Annabeth and Grover and complains just a little about Clarion Academy.

But underneath it all, Rachel can't help but think that there is something very, very familiar about San Fransokyo.

Some days, her feet takes her to where she wants to go. Some days, she tells Jack-Jack he's heading in the wrong direction and tells him that the statue of something-or-other that they want to see was back at that crossing, or that fountain that they can throw coins in for wishes is actually further up ahead, not at this turning. Some days, she walks without thinking, and she finds herself in art shops and comic book stores and playgrounds and ice cream parlours that are somehow so very, very familiar to her.

Some nights, instead of fire and death and bronze and gold swords flashing and showers of arrows and monsters looming up at her, she dreams of superheroes and a small boy with straggly brown hair and a wide grin and ice creams and playgrounds and piggyback rides.

It's one day when she's in one of the biggest comic book stores with Jack-Jack, one of the stores that seem the most familiar to her, when she bumps into a tall, lanky college-age boy with a beanie and a stack of comics tumble out of his hands onto the ground.

"Oh, no, I'm so, so sorry – " she is babbling away, gathering up the comics on the ground, when a voice says: " _Red_?"

She looks up, and she meets blue, blue eyes in a face with familiar features now in an expression of shock.

He stares at her, stares at her green eyes, her freckles, her fire-engine red hair, her paint splattered jeans and the plain white shirt she's wearing and her scruffy sneakers, and he says, again, "Red? R-Rachel?"

"Um, do I – "

His eyes take on a sad, almost pleading look, and in her mind flashes a series of pictures; ice cream playgrounds a huge mansion nightmares of monsters drawing lots of drawings markers and crayons and superheroes and video games and –

"Fred?"

A relieved smile breaks out on his face, and he lets out a breath he's been holding, and Rachel can only think of one thing: "Freddie!"

It's without warning that she throws her arms around him, laughing, laughing loudly, and he lifts her and spins her in the air before setting her back on the ground, laughing himself.

"Oh, man, I thought you'd forgotten me completely!" says Fred. "I thought I'd never see you again! I tried asking my parents, tried researching, social media, everything – "

"I don't like social media all that much," Rachel admits, stepping back for a moment to beam at him. "Oh, my gods, no wonder this place felt so familiar! I've been here a week, and I kept thinking that I knew this place, I kept finding my way to places I thought I'd never been to before – "

She stops suddenly, and grins up at him brightly, and she's reminded of days having fun and being free and feeling happy and her _first real friend, her brother_ –

"Rachel?"

It's Jack-Jack, his head appearing from behind a bookshelf, looking at Rachel and Fred curiously.

"Jack-Jack, this is Fred – Fred, Jack-Jack," Rachel introduces. "Fred's one of my childhood friends. Jack-Jack's with me for the art exhibition up at the museum."

"Whoa, so you finally figured out that dream you wanted to do art your whole life?"

"Kind of! There was this sign-up sheet at school, you see – "

"Hey, where do you go to school, anyway – "

"Clarion Ladies' Academy, my dad made me go there – "

"No way, you mean that snobby finishing school? Oh man, Red, I can imagine you sticking out like crazy – "

"It's not so bad, you know, the girls aren't always – "

At this point, Jack-Jack clears his throat amusedly.

"Rachel, I'm gonna be here for a while longer," he says to her. "Maybe you and your friend can find somewhere to sit around and catch up – I can get back to Marie and Toulouse's on my own."

"But – "

Jack-Jack only grins, shakes his head. "It'll be fine," he says. "It'll be fun to wander around alone. You two go and catch up."

* * *

"I'm surprised you remember me, you were like five!" Fred's grinning widely now, shoving the beanie back onto his hair properly. They're sitting in some ice-cream parlour not far down where Fred's clearly a familiar customer, because the blue-haired girl behind the counter rolls her eyes and hands him a giant cone of _something_ while Rachel gets chocolate chip ice cream. "Although, I'm definitely not complaining. I missed you, kid!"

Rachel laughs. "I missed you too," she admits. "I remember now, my parents couldn't get me out of my room for at least a week, I was so upset at never being able to see you again. They ended up buying me a hamster. Like it could make up for not seeing you again. I mean, okay, sure, the hamster was really cute, and really nice, but then it died a couple of years later, you know, and this time they sent me to a therapist! No kidding. But, yeah. You know, I think you're one of the reasons I'm so against using my dad's money all the time, and why I go around in, like, well, this. I remember being so grossed out about you talking about not washing your underwear for a week – "

"One pair lasts me four days," Fred says, proudly, grinning slightly as Rachel laughs. She doesn't saw _ew_ , she doesn't say _gross_ , she just laughs and says:

"I can think of a couple of people who'd like to learn something like that."

They exchange numbers, promise to call and to meet up. Fred explains he's kinda busy at the moment, because he's hanging around San Fransokyo Institute of Technology helping out with projects, and he's got his own schoolwork to do in addition to his mascot duties -

"Really?" Rachel says. "You study at SFIT?"

"Whoa, no way! Nah, I'm just the mascot there. Tadashi's really cool, though, he and Wasabi and Honey Lemon and GoGo are awesome! And Hiro's really great. You should totally come by and meet them sometime," says Fred. "Like, Tadashi's aunt runs this café, you can totally just come in! Her donuts are life, I kid you not. Or, if you want, SFIT's campus security is really lax. Seriously."

"Um, I don't know," says Rachel. "I mean, they're all around your age, right?"

There is a pause, suddenly, between them, as they realise the age difference; Fred at nearing twenty one, Rachel just having turned seventeen a while back. Granted, Rachel thinks, it's just four years, it's not _that_ much, but to be surrounded by a bunch of twenty-one-year-olds –

"Actually," says Fred, "Hiro's just fourteen."

She blinks: "Wait, what? He's fourteen, and he's in _college_?"

Fred nods, eagerly. "He's a total kid genius. Like, he graduated high school at thirteen, and then for this really long time he was just messing around because he didn't want to study or anything, but my man Tadashi totally convinced him! And he applied and got into SFIT last year!"

His enthusiasm is catching, and Rachel finds herself smiling.

"I'll call," she promises.

* * *

The next day, Fred bounds into the lab so happily with such a huge smile on his face that they all look at him oddly.

"Tadashi!" he says, loudly, bouncing over to the older Hamada, who is talking to GoGo: "You won't believe what happened! Remember when I told you about Rachel?"

"Yeah, your redhead childhood friend," says Tadashi, straightening up, "What about her?"

"You won't believe it! I just met her yesterday! Here! In San Fransokyo!"

The smile breaks out over Tadashi's face: "No way!"

"Uh, hold up," Wasabi says, holding up a hand: "What's going on?"

Fred explains to the rest of them about Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and him running into her at his favourite comic-book store yesterday, and her art exhibition –

"Ooh!" Honey Lemon says, excitedly, her face lighting up: "I've heard about that exhibition, for teenage artists! I've been meaning to go! Apparently it's really amazing, all the artists are really, really good!"

"We should go," decides Tadashi. "We can all go together and check out the art."

"A man of science," says Hiro, "reduced to staring at strange paintings he doesn't understand."

"Red was amazing when she was a kid," says Fred, "I bet she's just as amazing, even more so, now."

GoGo smirks, blows out her bubblegum.

"You think he's talking about her artwork, or the girl?" Wasabi hisses, as Fred picks up a call from his recently-rediscovered childhood friend with a thousand-megawatt smile on his face, and Honey Lemon bursts into giggles, Tadashi laughs, and Hiro and GoGo end up sniggering.

* * *

 **please do let me know what you think! also, do give your opinion on Fred and Rachel's relationship, yes? haha thank youu**


	3. coffee or something

They take one evening off superhero duties as Big Hero 6 to stop by San Fransokyo's Art Museum and check out the art exhibition. It's a Saturday night, so all the teenage artists as well as the sponsors and all that other stuff are there, and Hiro blinks at the mass of people around him, at the paintings and sculptures and artwork filling the walls.

They all dredge out some cash for the entry fee – all of which, they are informed, will go to charities and art programs in schools and other good causes – and wander around the exhibition, Fred on the lookout for the redheaded girl Rachel Elizabeth Dare whom he's been talking about all week.

Even as a man of science – or boy, really – Hiro notices some things. He notices that all of E. Aster Bunnymund paintings and sculptures are somewhat _hopeful_ – they've always got something to do with hope, something brand-new. Sophie Bennett, on the other hand, seems to have a wild imagination, bright colours and bold streaks and dark shadows blended together, scenes and figures he could never dream up for himself. Jack-Jack paints and builds things of heroes and sacrifice and secrets and love, and Rachel Elizabeth Dare –

Well, Hiro doesn't really know _how_ to describe what she paints and builds, except that it's magic, it's myth, it's everything together. It's hope and it's love and it's loss and it's sacrifice and it's imagination, it's war and it's death and it's light and everything in between.

Mostly, though, she paints of magic and light and darkness.

He stops in front of one of her paintings, full of reds and blacks and all kinds of bold and dark colours, and stares, for a long while, until he notices someone has appeared next to him, staring at the same painting.

He turns his head, and immediately has to swallow. She's a girl, around his age, and she's, like, really pretty. _Really_ pretty. She has bright red hair hanging around her shoulders, and these bright green eyes, and she's got freckles across her face and she's dressed in some kind of white blouse and black jeans that have holes and marker drawings all over them, and she's tilting her head, gazing at the painting thoughtfully.

"Er, hi," he offers, and immediately wants to hit himself over the head for it.

The girl blinks in surprise, turns to look at him properly, and –

 _Whoa, her eyes are really…whoa_.

"Er, hi," she says, brow furrowing a bit, but then she smiles at him brightly, like she's not very used to being awkward with people. "You like this one, huh?"

"To be honest, I'm not really an arts kind of guy, but yeah, it seems pretty interesting," he says, and glances at the plaque, desperately thinking of something, anything, more interesting to say: " _As Long As We're Together_ ," he reads. "Cool. I never would've guessed that title."

 _Genius_ , a voice inside his head hisses. _She's obviously an arts person and now you've just proven yourself an idiot –_

"Yeah, I guess not," the girl sighs. "Still, it's really cool, don't you think? It's supposed to be a representation of Tartarus, see." She gestures at the sign.

"Tartarus…that's the Greek version of the Underworld, right?" he says, racking his brains.

She laughs. "Kind of. Like, the Ancient Greeks literally have the Underworld, which has the Fields of Punishment, the Fields of Asphodel and then Elysium, where all the heroes go. You could say that Tartarus is kind of like the hell beyond hell. Only the worst monsters go there."

"I can kind of feel the anger and pain radiating out from it," Hiro admits, glancing back at the painting. "I don't know, it's kind of interesting. It's, um, different, though. Not really what I was expecting at all." He thinks of how Fred's told them all about how cheerful and happy Rachel Elizabeth Dare is. "But it just seems really sad."

"Yeah," she says, and he thinks her voice sounds a little funny, and she swallows and says, "Yeah, the amount of pain in that place would be crazy."

"But some of the artwork's really cool," Hiro says, hurriedly. "There's that sculpture thing of, um, I think it's Olympus?"

"Olympus redesigned," says the girl. "Can you imagine what Olympus would be like equipped with modern technology? I bet they'd have loads of places to party. Lots of Jacuzzis. And food, lots of food. I bet Starbucks would have found its way up there too."

"Maybe they'll have Chinese takeaway," Hiro grins.

" _Especially_ Chinese takeaway. I bet that Zeus' favourite."

"And pegasus equipped in armour with lasers."

"Pegasi," the girl corrects. "And no way. I bet they have like. Convertibles and stuff. Apollo probably has a red Maserati or something." She grins for a moment, then continues, "And plays loud annoying music all day long after he attaches speakers to his iPod."

"Really? I always thought motorbikes would be cooler."

"Nah. Bright red sportscars scream _look at me! The all amazing Apollo_!"

He laughs at that, and the girl grins widely at him.

"Hey, Hiro!" It's Fred, bouncing up and down on his feet, waving furiously. "HIRO, LITTLE MAN! We were looking all over for you!"

He bounces all the way over to them, Tadashi and GoGo and Wasabi and Honey Lemon in tow, and then stops abruptly, does a double take, and grins: "Hey, you met Red already!"

Hiro pauses. Blink. Blinks again. And then his eyes widen and he whips around to look at the pretty redheaded girl again, who's looking a little surprised, and he _knows_ his face is burning a bright, bright red, and his hands are already moving of their own accord, the way they always do when he gets nervous.

"You're – you're Rachel?" he says, and suddenly he's hit with the realisation that he's been talking about her artwork to her, and his face flushes even further. Admittedly, he hasn't said very much, but still –

"Yeah," she says, looking a bit sheepish. "And you're Hiro, right? The kid genius?"

At that, he suddenly feels a swell of pride ( _she knows me_!): "Yeah. Turning fifteen in a couple of weeks."

"Cool! That makes you closer to my age than Gramps Fredzilla over here – "

" _Hey_!" Fred says, indignantly, and they end up laughing, the whole group of them, somehow.

She's introduced to the rest of them easily, and Fred refuses to introduce any of them in any way apart from their nicknames, even Tadashi, whom he's decided to call Hotshot after the scare with the fire last year. Personally, everyone else thinks it's lame, but it makes Tadashi laugh instead of shutting him down, so they stick with it. Fred introduces Hiro as Squirt, but to be fair, no one actually calls him that, they stick to calling him Hiro.

Rachel, Hiro decides soon enough, is funny. Funny and really, really nice. They get her to explain some of her artwork, and Hiro realises soon enough that lots of her artwork draws on old Greek myths and things like that. But more than that, he thinks, they are emotions – red and raw and bright and real, a wave of feelings drowning him the more he looks at her artwork.

He notices Rachel is staring very, very hard at the paintings in the area, like she might cry. There's a painting that seems to have a Cyclops, another of a young blond boy holding a bronze knife with the faint etchings of a scar, and is that a satyr - ?

Hiro swallows, opens his mouth and blurts:

"Do you want to get a coffee or something?"

* * *

They do, in fact, end up 'getting a coffee or something'. They end up doing it quite a few times, in fact.

Rachel's seventeen, just two years older than Hiro, and four years younger than the rest of the nerd crew. Fred likes to keep himself around her, making up for eleven years of lost time. They don't tell her about Big Hero 6, of course they don't, but they tell her loads about SFIT and about all the crazy stupid stuff they do.

On her end, Rachel tells them lots about New York and about her friends Percy and Annabeth and Grover. She doesn't like to talk about Clarion Ladies' Academy, and Fred doesn't push her, either. Hiro gets the feeling that both she and Fred don't like to talk about their money much.

Their conversations do not always add up. Sometimes, Hiro gets confused by all the artsy stuff Rachel talks about. Majority of the time, Rachel's eyes glaze over when he tries to explain one of his projects or lessons.

That's okay. They find other stuff to do. Rachel talks about horseback riding and archery and the Empire State building and stuff like that, and they go around San Fransokyo and be tourists for a day, and Hiro finds her standing on the street one day, completely painted gold, with the bunch of other teenage artists from the exhibition, raising money for some art therapy charity thing that goes to places torn apart by war to help with the kids there.

Hiro thinks that's pretty amazing. He brings out Megabot to do acrobatic stunts in front of them to get more attention (with, of course, Rachel's approval), and they even figure out how to get Megabot to colour using crayons and hold up paintbrushes, and it becomes a huge hit and they get a hell load of change that day.

One day, they're getting coffee, Rachel and Fred and him, while the others are back at the lab working on their projects. Well, Rachel and Fred are getting coffee. Hiro's drinking a chocolate milkshake. It's a quiet little café, not far from where Rachel's staying, according to what she says, and for some reason Hiro finds it hard to really pay attention to what Fred is saying.

Her eyes are really nice. Really pretty. And her hair's a mess, but a cool mess, and she's so expressive and bright and she keeps talking and talking and –

"Hiro? Earth to Hiro?"

Fred is waving a hand in front of Hiro's face, and he chokes on his milkshake.

"I'm good," he splutters, waving away their concerns. "Just surprised. What were you saying?"

"Oh, nothing important," says Fred, but there's a wide grin on his face that Hiro doesn't feel very safe around. "Just that Rachel's extending her stay in San Fransokyo."

"Jack-Jack and the others are heading back at the end of next week," Rachel says to Hiro, smiling slightly. "And I'm only allowed to stay with Marie and Toulouse until then. After that, I'm staying in San Fran for a couple more weeks."

"And guess where she's bunking out at!" Fred cheers, his coffee sloshing in his cup. "Heathcliff's gonna be so happy to see you again!"

Something like a spasm crosses Hiro's face.

* * *

"What were you _thinking_?" Hiro demands, later that night, when they come together just before they start patrol. "No offence, Fred, but your place is our main base of operations! Won't Rachel get suspicious if she's staying there?"

"Nah, Red's cool," Fred says, easily. "Really, guys. We added loads of artworks over the years, that'll keep her occupied, plus there's Heathcliff! And I told her I could get her involved in all these art programs at schools and stuff! She just needs a place to stay."

Hiro doesn't look very convinced; and it's not like he doesn't want Rachel to stay. He wants her to stay more than anything. The problem is, what with their hero duties and all that -

"You don't want her around?" Fred asks, an unreadable tone in his voice. Honey Lemon tenses, just a little bit, because she knows just how important Rachel is to Fred, and even Tadashi doesn't say anything over the comm line.

"What? No!" Hiro splutters. "Are you kidding me? Rachel's _great_! She's really amazing, and she's really pretty, and she's funny and she's nice and she's smart and she's great at her artwork and she's so passionate about stuff, you know, and she – "

Suddenly he stops, falls silent, and swallows, his face flaming red.

GoGo says, "You like her."

"What? No I don't! I mean, she's really great, yeah, but I've only known her for a couple of weeks, you know, and, I mean, yeah – "

He's blabbing now, he knows, rambling on the way he does whenever he gets nervous, his hands waving and twisting in the air. GoGo hasn't lowered her visor yet, and she's got a smirk on her face, and Honey Lemon cooes and Wasabi chuckles and even Fred is grinning lazily at the idea.

Through their earpieces comes Tadashi's amused voice. "No way, little bro."

"Hiro," says Baymax, "your heart rate has increased dramatically and you show signs of stress, in accordance with other symptoms that imply that you are lying. Lying is a breach of trust when amongst friends – "

"Thank you very much!" Hiro yelps.

* * *

So Rachel takes one of the many guest bedrooms in Fred's mansion, and Hiro watches with his arms crossed and his face fixed in a glare as Rachel hugs Jack-Jack Parr goodbye before he gets onto his plane back to Metroville.

"You can stop being all jealous now," Tadashi stage-whispers to him, and Hiro socks him and Wasabi bursts into laughter.

Rachel stares in disbelief when she finds the old drawing that she did of Fred years ago as a superhero. "You kept it," she says to him.

"'Course I did," says Fred, and she leans into him as he slings his arm around her as they stand in front of the wall. "I'm telling you, Red, if my house was on fire, that'd be the first thing I grab. I mean, I can buy everything else, but I can't buy that."

Rachel doesn't say anything, but Fred _knows_.

* * *

Rachel ends up spending lots of time in the room that Fred and Heathcliff has designated as her art area. It gets splattered with paint and is covered with oil pastel markings, and sometimes she lets Hiro sit in and watch as she paints, usually with the music turned up so loud that Hiro can barely hear himself think sometimes.

She colours volcanoes, she paints islands in the middle of the sea with two great pillars standing up and a buff guy standing on the island. She paints a huge golden ship flying through the air, she draws a Cyclops standing shyly with what she tells him is a harpy, she sketches people – a dark girl with golden eyes, an intimidating-looking burly Asian guy, a skinny boy whose hair is on fire, a dark-haired boy with eyes like the sea and a blond girl with grey, grey eyes and a satyr, horns poking out of his curly hair and pipes in his hand; and the list goes on, and on, and on.

"You don't mind me being here?" Hiro asks, one evening, as he snacks on gummy bears and watches her paint.

Rachel just shrugs, attention on her work. "I haven't chased you out," she says, and rubs at the picture she's doing, of a blond guy who's supposed to be the Greek sun god (or something like that), Apollo, and she frowns at it, like she's not very happy.

* * *

One night, Fred is woken by the sound of music thumping softly, gently, throughout the house. It's not particularly loud, exactly, but after nearly a year of being a superhero, you kind of get attuned to anything that might possibly wake you up. (Which he's kind of sad about, actually. He likes being able to sleep without getting up in the middle of the night.)

He pads through the mansion in his blue ninja pyjamas, and pushes open the door to Rachel's temporary studio.

She doesn't notice him enter, at first. She's painting almost feverishly, attacking the canvas sheet, her hair sticking up and her shirt collar falling over her shoulder as she prods at it, stabs at it, wildly. She looks almost half-crazed, and Fred knows that something is wrong.

He's never seen Rachel like this. Not ever. Not when she paints, not when she gets mad, not _ever_ –

"Rachel?" he tries, tentatively, as he reaches over and pauses the music on the speakers.

Her head whips around, and he vaguely notices that her eyes are greener than usual, almost glowing in the dim light as she stares at him, unblinking.

And then he blinks in disbelief as he takes in the painting she's been doing.

It's – it's them. Well, not really him and Hiro and GoGo and Honey Lemon and Wasabi, but them as their Big Hero 6 selves, all suited up, though in shades darker than they should be. It's them one year ago at Krei Industries, the portal above the rubble of the place, swirls of pink and purple glittering just through the entrance; some kind of white vehicle which he knows is Abigail's pod, Callaghan with the Kabuki mask in the background; but it's dark, so dark, so many shadows, so many shades of grey and more grey –

He's grateful to notice that their faces can't be seen.

Then he notices it's not the only thing she's been working on.

Next to it is another painting, far from sloppy; it's of some kind of throne room, he thinks, a blond boy with a dagger and a scar on his face, rubble around him, and he's bleeding, and he's dying, dying, his blue eyes wide –

Suddenly Rachel blinks, and her eyes aren't glowing green quite so much.

"Fred," she says, and she collapses.

She tells him it's nightmares; horrible, horrible nightmares that keep her up unless she paints, she _has_ to paint, and she creates the dying blond boy and she tells him it's about heroism and bravery and sacrifice.

"I knew him," Rachel says. "Sort of. He died."

The next night, he finds her painting, though her eyes aren't glowing so green and she's painting normally, calmly; she's painting a couple, a beautiful girl with long dark hair and blue eyes, a tall, buff-looking African-American guy with a smile a mile wide, and a huge dragon-thing in the background and a cruise ship on the ocean far behind them, and she cries as she paints, and Fred brings her hot chocolate and makes her lean against his shoulder and he pulls up a blanket around them and they fall asleep right there, on the studio floor.

She doesn't remember painting the picture of Krei Industries, she tells him. She frowns when she looks at it, and Fred figures that her memory loss thing has to do from the panic from the nightmares, though he wonders how she ended up painting _them_.

Through the day, he brings her out and they play video games and watch stupid movies and Hiro looks at her with wide brown eyes that Rachel's completely oblivious to, and they can laugh and they smile and Rachel glows brightly like everything's right with the world.

And every night Fred wakes up to music thumping softly through the mansion, and pads down to the studio with mugs of hot chocolate and pillows and blankets.

* * *

It's a Friday, in the middle of the night (2.45 am, so it's Saturday, really), when they land in Fred's backyard and enter through one of the back doors, without Heathcliff's knowledge, bursting in from the gardens, beaten up and bruised and shaking badly. They stumble through the doors, into the grand hallways, holding each other up to get to the rooms that they use when a familiar, red-headed girl turns into the hallway they're in, holding a tin bucket-thing in one hand and a bunch of paintbrushes in the other.

Fred splutters. GoGo tenses, Honey Lemon winces, Wasabi looks freaked out and Hiro doesn't know what to do or what to think except to maybe just _panic right now_ –

Why didn't Tadashi _tell_ them she was in the house?

The communication line is silent, and Hiro knows that Tadashi is seeing this through one of their cameras or the cameras in the mansion.

Rachel is still staring at them.

They are _screwed._

Hiro isn't very sure what he's waiting for – gasping, or accusations, or yelling, or something like that. Something angry, or freaky, or something like that, he doesn't even know.

Instead, Rachel Elizabeth Dare only blinks, and says, "You guys look pretty beat-up. Do you guys have a separate room for all your medic stuff?"


End file.
